Epilogue

Abstract

We judge the well-being of other humans by our own standards and consider this humane. But the new source of energy from fossil fuels destroyed the old mores and ethics which evolved from the knowledge of limited energy available through the natural ecosystems, and also destroyed the energy controls so imperative for the human culture and possibly for human survival. From then on people who live as a part of a balanced environment have been considered underdeveloped and are, whenever possible, doped with our ‘all-economy’ and/or ‘all-profit’ drugs to help them keep pace in an ever-accelerating race, whose end result will be exhaustion. To our surprise we have discovered primitive tribes with better developed regulatory mechanisms for survival than ours (Thompson, 1950). Although many may not have the ability to be objective when confronted with different life standards, more and more people recognize (I hope) that the low standard assures a better alliance between man and the earth biosphere, between man and his sources of energy. We have changed the energy source so fast that the adpatations, controls — the whole human culture — stayed far behind. We must revise our approach toward ‘under developed’ societies and redefine ‘humanity’.

The basic right to life (to ecosystem joiners) requires revision of laws to convict anyone of willful release of waste which disorders the general life-support systems, the mineral cycles, and the complex ecological systems that keep the life-support system working efficiently and smoothly. Economic developers selfishly interested in their industry, their town, or their records of expansion must include in the costs of any new ventures the full interfacing of the activity with the life-support systems and payments in full to the public sector for any energy values heretofore regarded as free (except for processing cost) such as water, air, mineral reserves, and ecosystem area. The developer may protest that it will block development. Why should there be a God-given right to develop? Howard T. Odum, 1971, p. 300